I'm doing a little coaching as a service to my community and for the love of the game. Anyhow, I'm teaching these highschoolers how to smash and a lot of them use arm and shoulder rotation to achieve the smash. I have very little patience at this level and to fix a problem quickly I basically sat the player on a stool and made him smash sitting on the stool in the middle of the court. It was quite interesting, the more shoulder and arm they used, the likely they'd fall off. I've corrected all of them to use their wrist to smash and not much arm and zero shoulder! Also the fact that if they fell off the stool, they'd have to 30 pushups each time, that also pressured them to correctly do the technique. By the time the drill was over, I had players complaining that their chest was hurting from too many pushups... Soooo funny.
wow that is very interesting and funny hahahaha. sounds like a good idea though. sure makes them get the point heh
Don, I have never come across this drill before. But it sounds very "right" and logical... I think you have made a true invention! In fact, I'm going to try this myself... well, maybe skip the push-up part...
Have you thought about the possible accident when they loss the balance and fall off, especially to the back ?
Yup, I too proper precations and put mats in the back so if they do fall back, it would be a cushiony fall.
If u skip the push-up part, u won't work as hard, or so my coach says. He makes me and the rest of my team do it. I think I must have done 75 push ups today. On top of my daily 100, gawd, I feel like dying.
Don... Make them play with the squash racquet, like we were talking about in my thread! That should make them scared enough to play properly hehehe...
Re: Don... I do... I'll be implementing that training soon for the singles players only. I've though about it for a while, and I don't think that most of these kids are at a certain level to cope with such harsh training.
You're lucky, my training involves 500 pushups i.e 100 reps x 5 sets. My players are only expected to do 200 I'm such a harsh coach...
that's true... but i rather do running drills ( a feeder with 50 shuttles, 4 corners, running like hell. "kokeren" in dutch) than push-ups.... the stool is nice, very creative! but don't try it for intermediates. when they got the wrist-smash going, the are "allowed" to use more body force. weight transition is a very good way to get more power. to train them to get their body weight to teh front. get a higher stool, and remove all teh matts exept on teh front: ïf you fall, fall forwards"
but you are meant to use your shoulders to smash. How can you get any power by just using your wrist??
I think the forum has come a long way to getting the proper information and techniques out to the masses. I, for one, believe most old threads should be left alone. Smashing with wrist only?! Not when one consider everything else discussed after this thread.
i think this is not such a good thrill. i never understood this "do 30 pushups". do you think they will lern better because of this? if they fall over, they will see that it`s not correct technique. But i think you must use your shoulder for power (as well as almost whole body, but esp. shoulder). A wrist smash is not a traditional smash...
Pushups and other calisthenics are good for conditioning. Do enough of those and you'll never be short of breath. It does nothing technique-wise. Yeah, totally agree with you about the wrist smash. Standing on the chair?! The only time I see someone doing drills standing on a chair is the coach when he simulate smash for multi-shuttle drills.
